The Underground Railroad of the 19th-century

This blog is regarding the 19th-century slave escape routes called 
the "Underground Railroad" and how modern “well to do” or 
affluent African-American people have failed to support the cause.

In the history of the world there have been terrible events where communities have been mistreated, enslaved and even massacred due to intolerance of language, religion and specially ethnicity.

One of these terrible events occurred in 

the United States during the 19th-century

 This event is called now the Underground Railroad, it was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century (1800s) slaves of African descent in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause.

The network now generally known as the Underground Railroad was formed in the early 1800s, and reached its height between 1850 and 1860.

Map of the Underground Railroad in the U.S.

William Still is often called "The Father of the Underground Railroad", helped hundreds of slaves to escape (as many as 60 a month), sometimes hiding them in his Philadelphia home.

One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the "Railroad".

Slave Auction in the South, 1861

British North America (present-day Canada), where slavery was prohibited, was a popular destination, as its long border gave many points of access.

More than 30,000 people were said to have escaped there via the network during its 20-year peak period.

Even at the height of the Underground Railroad, fewer than 1,000 slaves from all slave-holding states were able to escape each year, a quantity much smaller than the natural annual increase of the enslaved population. 

Although the economic impact was small, the psychological impact on slaveholders of an informal network to assist escaped slaves was immense.

How the Underground Railroad worked

NOTE: To reduce the risk of infiltration, many people associated with the Underground Railroad knew only their part of the operation and not of the whole scheme.

 There were the "conductors" who ultimately moved the runaways from station to station. A conductor would sometimes pretend to be a slave to enter a plantation.

Once on a plantation, the abolitionist (called “conductor”), will take the person(s) on foot or by wagon in groups of 1–3 slaves. Some groups were considerably larger.

However, abolitionist Charles Turner Torrey and his colleagues rented horses and wagons and often transported as many as 15 or 20 slaves at a time would direct the runaways to the North.

Charles Turner Torrey

Slaves would travel at night, about 10–20 miles (15–30 km) to each station. They would stop at the so-called "stations" or "depots" during the day and rest. The stations were out of the way places like barns. While resting at one station, a message was sent to the next station to let the station master know the runaways were on their way.

The Underground Railroad, Charles T. Webber, 1891

Routes were often purposely indirect to confuse pursuers. Most escapes were by individuals or small groups; occasionally, there were mass escapes, such as with the Pearl incident.

Southern newspapers of the day were often filled with pages of notices soliciting information about escaped slaves and offering sizable rewards for their capture and return. Federal marshals and professional bounty hunters known as slave catchers pursued fugitives as far as the Canadian border.

Slave Traders, Senegal, 1780's

The risk was not limited solely to actual fugitives. Because strong, healthy blacks in their prime working and reproductive years were seen and treated as highly valuable commodities, it was not unusual for free blacks both freedmen (former slaves) and those who had never been slaves to be kidnapped and sold into slavery.

One of the Great African-Americans personalities

And example to the people

 American abolitionist Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman (1820-1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War.

She was born into slavery, eventually missions to rescue more than 300 slaves[1] using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era struggled for women's suffrage.

What are people doing in the 21st Century
to commemorate the Underground Railroad

Very little, one of the reasons is that most people strongly believe that the endeavor belongs to the government or is cleanly the “responsibility of others” to do it.

And people with the means to do it or (well to do), they waste their capital and time pretending “all is fine” adopting wrong causes like celebrating other peoples (ethnicity) cultures.

Like the old saying goes...

"Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes." George Santayana

More information 

 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad

Contemporary literature

 1829 David Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (a call for resistance to slavery in Georgia)

1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

1854 The Planter's Northern Bride by Caroline Lee Hentz